cough, cough

This H1N1 thing, I don’t know, should we be as freaked out about it as the media is telling us to be? Is it going to take us all down or is it media hysteria all over again? Anyone remember Y2K, bird flu, SARS?

All week, I’ve seen people in long lines for the vaccine and it’s been the biggest water cooler talk in the office. (Whatever happened to talking about stupid tv shows?) The biggest question asked is “are you getting the shot?” I don’t think I will as there are many more people out there that need it more than me. At least I will wait until everyone that really needs it has the chance to get it.

A small part of me thinks this flu shot hysteria is a huge pharmaceutical cash-grab. Private companies are going to make billions off the vaccine (and their stock prices are currently soaring). And it’s a little shady that many politicians are profiting off of this as well; some of the same people that profited off of Tamiflu when bird flu was labelled an upcoming pandemic. Maybe I’m too much of a skeptic, but why are we not more concerned about the 16,000 children that die a day from hunger? Any death to illness is horrible, but a little perspective please. Supposedly I have the same chances of dying from falling out of bed as I do from H1N1.

With that being said, I am still going to take my little preventative measures; washing hands frequently and taking salt water to gargle and stick up my nose with a Q-tip (funny!). That doesn’t seem too tough.